


Dear Mr. Harper

by der_tanzer



Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick isn't good at apologizing. Especially when he isn't sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Mr. Harper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valis2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valis2/gifts).



> Prompted by valis2 for LJ Prompty Thing II.

Nick wasn’t good at apologies. That was part of why he kept Cody around. A small part, sure, but an extremely vital one. Cody had kept him out of more bar fights and jail cells than he’d actually been in, and that was saying a lot. But at least he could do this one on paper. In theory, at least, that was supposed to be better. He could think out what he wanted to say and not be tempted to be lose his temper. But he also had to worry more about the tone. There wouldn’t be any smiles or shy laughter to insure he wasn’t misunderstood.

It was all very complicated. Especially now when he wasn’t sorry.

“Are you sure I can’t help?” Cody asked, peering over his shoulder. Nick curled his arm around the paper and leaned over it like a kid with a math test.

“I don’t need any help,” he growled. “Go away.”

“I can see that. You’ve got all of three sentences there.”

“Shut up. I said I’d do it and I’m doing it. If you want to be useful bring me a beer.”

“Oh, a drunk apology? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Nick manfully resisted the urge to shove his chair back into Cody’s legs and ripped the page out of the spiral notebook. He crumpled it in one large hand and threw it at the waste basket by his feet. It hit the rim and bounced off, landing among a pile of identically crumpled paper wads. Nick cursed fiercely and Cody slipped away.

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you on our last meeting. I’m very sorry I suggested your wife could be your granddaughter. There was no harm intended, she’s just way too goddamn young for you and_

“Shit,” he muttered and erased the last line. Then he thought a moment and erased part of the line before it, too.

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you on our last meeting. I’m very sorry I implied that your wife was young enough to be the daughter of your own child. It was wrong of me to notice the obvious and I’m_

“No it wasn’t. Asshole,” Nick sighed. He started to erase again and the paper tore. He called the page a few unmentionable things and threw it away. Cody brought the beer, kissed Nick softly, and returned to the galley so he could work in peace.

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I’m writing to apologize for the misunderstanding that took place during our last meeting. Your wife is a very nice girl_ —he paused, erased— _woman, and I’m sure your relationship is entirely equal and not at all gross and inappropriate._

“Damn it.” 

Joshua Harper was sixty-three and his wife a delicate little thing of eighteen. He’d hired them to follow her during the three or four hours a week that she was out of his sight. At first Nick hadn’t minded the job. It was his idea of easy money, spying on a teenage tramp who had no doubt married the old man for his money and probably had boys on the side.

Unfortunately the surveillance revealed that he and Joshua Harper were only half right. Money was at the root of the marriage, but it hadn’t been her idea. Murray bugged one of the sensible low-heeled shoes that she wore when her husband wasn’t around and they followed her relentlessly. One day the three of them sat in the car outside her mother’s house and listened to them fight. 

It turned out that her father’s business was in trouble and Harper threatened to call in the note on it unless Lena married him. She was seventeen when the deal was made and they married on the day after her eighteenth birthday. Her father turned the business around in six months, caught up his debt, and left his wife. Now Harper was his mother-in-law’s sole means of support and the detectives listened helplessly as the older woman sobbed and begged Lena to stay married.

There was no doubt that Lena’s mother would have married the man herself if she could—he was only fifteen years older than her—but even if she’d been single, it was her pretty young daughter that he wanted. Only by staying married could Lena support her mother in the style upon which she insisted, and Lena was too kind hearted to refuse. But not too kind hearted to refrain from begging her mother to set her free.

The surveillance ended that day. They were done invading Lena’s privacy, and didn’t feel very good about taking Harper’s money. Unfortunately Nick was home alone when the old man came to pick up the last pictures and settle the bill. Nick said some unpleasant things about human trafficking and white slavery, and didn’t so much _imply_ as come right out and _say_ that Lena was five years younger than Harper’s granddaughter from his first marriage.

Harper threatened to sue him, as well as telling everyone in California how badly he’d been treated. He was adamant about running them out of business, and Nick was pretty sure he’d replied with something along the lines of how Harper would just have to go ahead do that since they didn’t have a little girl to sell him. 

One wouldn’t think a conversation could go downhill from a point that low, and yet it did.

Cody and Murray had been appropriately horrified when they heard about it and both thought an apology of some sort was in order. Maybe not a good one, and certainly not a sincere one, as they all agreed the man was evil and Nick was more right than wrong. But Joshua Harper was a paying client , so a gesture needed to be made.

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I apologize for the hostility of the other day. It was wrong of me to judge your personal life, even if you are participating in the worst kind of prostitution by taking over this child’s life and paying off her bitch-pimp mother._

“For fuck’s sake,” he groaned and added it to the paper wads on the floor.

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
We very much enjoyed following your wife around and hearing what a horrible person_

“Probably not.”

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I’m very sorry for our argument the other day. You are, of course, perfectly within your rights to marry any girl whose parents will sell her to_

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
Your wife is a very pleasant child and I’m glad we were able to provide you with proof that she’s too good for_

_Dear Mr. Harper,  
I want to apologize_

Nick laid down his pencil and buried his face in his hands. What did it matter? Joshua Harper was never going to hire them again. And his life of debauchery and general assholery was public knowledge. Could a man like that really influence their client pool?

He picked up the pencil and wrote swiftly, not taking time to think. When he was finished, he tore the page from the notebook and went down to the galley to tell his friends he was done. 

Murray left Cody to console him and went up to the salon to get the letter for mailing. He assumed he’d be allowed to read it and paused at the table to do so. At first he was horrified, and Cody, who wanted so badly to be professional, would freak out. But Nick was right. He’d said what needed saying. Murray read it again and decided Cody didn’t need to know.

 _Dear Mr. Harper,  
You suck. Please feel free to never call us again. And be sure to tell your friends likewise. If they’re _ your _friends we don’t need their business, either. In closing, I hope you die immediately so your wife can get on with her life._

_Fuck you very much,_  
Nick Ryder  
Riptide Detective Agency  



End file.
